MSP: homophobic abuse has become “considerably worse”

Green Party member Ross Greer, who was the youngest ever MSP to be elected to the Scottish parliament, hit out at homophobic abuse in the parliament which, he says, has become “considerably worse” over the past years.

Talking to the Press Association, the 29 year old said that he had experienced “patronising” ageism at Holyrood, but that he got “much more serious homophobic abuse, and that has got considerably worse in the last couple of years.

“Scottish politics and Scottish society in general is a worse place for LGBT people than it was five years ago.”

He also said that in terms of LGBT rights “it feels like we’ve gone backwards”.

He went on to hit back at people who claimed that politics had become more “woke” and said:

“I’m always fascinated by this idea that the parliament has become too focused on ‘identity politics’ or ‘woke issues’ at the expense of what the public really care about.

“Because the implication of that is that any minority group that needs protected aren’t the public, the public are whatever the majority group is…

 “But if we only ever did the top three issues, something on health, something on education, something on the economy, we would never have had equal marriage, we would never have had protection against racial discrimination, we would have never bothered protecting disabled people.

“We would have never done so many things for so many vulnerable groups.”